Naples Florida

Resting comfortably in Naples tonight at Hamilton Yacht Club….. your right, we don’t belong in this neck of the woods.  Dues are probably a million a year.  Laurie went in for a shower, the bathrooms were huge with travertene marble floors and granite counter tops.

Our plan was to make Marco Island tonight but it came up a 25 knot blow so we tucked in about 10 miles short of Marco.  Our intent was to to hide from the big waves but we got a bonus.. they had gas so we filled up both Seawinds.  We needed to tank up before heading those last 100 miles down to the keys, so this stop worked out well.  Naples is crazy busy, too little water for too many boats owned by people with too much money.  To let you know what the place is like:  There is a double deck tour boat that brings people through the neighborhoods just to check out the huge homes.  Everyone is on the water here so there are no “cheap” places.  Quite impressive really.

Mike and I had a blast sailing with each other today.  Piloting identical boats, we traded tips on what sail trim was working, it made us both better.  It was awesome to absolutely validate a change in performance by seeing if one or the other was faster at the moment.

My only problem today was my main halyard broke just after noon, that means the line that holds the main sail up shot up and dropped inside the mast, and of course the sail dropped immediately.. no way to re- tie to the broken line.  Fortunately our boats have a topping lift next to the main halyard so we re-purposed that line, raised the main sail and kept on trucking.  This evening after we tied up Jono went up the mast and fed a new line down through, replacing the broken halyard.  It went fine, I had a spare line so again.. we fixed everything that broke today qualifying it as a good day.  It’s a long way up to the top of that mast I tell you…..  Jono is becoming quite the sailor.  It’s very helpful to have him on board as you can clearly see.

To recap our day:  The morning sail started nicely as we left Boca Grande (Cayo Costa Park) with 14 knots of wind at just enough angle to motorsail into the wind.  There was a short time when I was down to one motor because winds were at a good angle to sail easier, but it didn’t last long.  After rounding Sanibel Island making the turn more Eastward, the wind was back on the nose.  The last 4 hours were rough.. it was a rodeo… gusts were up to 25  knots and still on the nose.  We broke through countless 4’ers for those last 4 hours.  Laurie was a little frazzled, I asked if she needed a hug when we were getting gas, she took me up on it immediately.  Hearing the motors run all day sets you on edge, but all the pounding to weather doubles the mental stress.  That kind of sailing is no fun, but especially acute for Laurie as this is her first big trip.  She’s a trooper and will do fine after seeing her blow that Shuttleworth out of the water while Mike slept today!

To explain… just off Fort Meyers a nice looking catamaran came 0ut to join Mike and I’s fast flying flotilla.. His intent was to run with us for a while.  He took a position between Mike and I in formation but quickly found out he couldn’t stay with us.  We had our boats super trimmed out and running perfectly for the conditions, we had been set up and running around 8 knots for quite a while.  He never had a chance to get his rig up to speed before we were gone!  I don’t think his boat would stay with a Seawind even if he had time to get up to speed.  I’m not sure what make of boat is was, maybe a 36′ shuttleworth.

All in all we had a good travel day covering 60 miles of South Florida’s West coast.  Tomorrow night we will be in or very near the Florida Keys!  Winds are supposed to be 7 knots tomorrow so it will definitely be an all motor day but on flat water, thankfully not banging into 4’ers in full wind like we did this evening.  Our plan is to sail into the night and pull over to the curb if we get tired.  In the yachtsman channel  (that parallels the everglades) you can stop and anchor anywhere you like, it’s wide open.  Chances are we won’t stop though. If it’s an easy motor we will likely see the sunrise from the Florida Keys Tuesday morning.

We are fueled up and ready to go at 7AM.

SYL !! and Jumanji